System and method for detecting and analyzing user migration in public social networks

ABSTRACT

An event selection system for computing user migration pattern across social network pages is provided. The event selection system includes a monitor module to monitor predetermined activities of social media users on preconfigured resources. The event selection system further includes a profile module to build a social media user profile based on the monitored activities of the social media users. The event selection system further includes a computing module to compute user migration patterns based on the social media user profiles. The event selection system further includes a display module to display the user migration patterns on a system user terminal. The event selection system further includes a reporting module configured to produce a report based on the monitored social media user activities.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser.No. 61/771,236 filed Mar. 1, 2013, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FORDETECTING AND ANALYZING USER MIGRATION IN PUBLIC SOCIAL NETWORKS,” whichis incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to tracking usageof social networks and particularly to a system and method for analyzingsequences of actions by a social media user when visiting a socialnetworking site.

2. Description of Related Art

Companies have always been concerned about contents published on theirwebsites. Companies provide sticky contents such as, chat rooms, webmails, Internet games, weather, news, blogs etc. on their websites, forthe purpose of getting Web surfers to return to their websites, or tohold the attention of the Web surfers and get them to spend longerperiod of time on their websites. Further, sticky content published onthe website results in exposure of the Web surfers to a company's overtor subtle messages, increased sales of products and services on thewebsite and a decrease in time that a Web surfer spends on the web pagesof competitors of the company. With the increased use of socialnetworking sites such as Facebook, companies have become more concernedabout the stickiness of their social web pages as well.

Traditionally, companies and organizations with web pages determine thestickiness of their web pages by measuring the time that a Web surferspends on the web page, and in which interval he or she returns to thatpage. A company or an organization would also greatly benefit frominformation about web surfing habits of their web page visitors whenthese visitors are not on the company's or organization's web page. Forexample, a company may be interested in understanding how much time aWeb surfer spends on a competitor's web page, or what makes the Websurfer migrate from the company's web page to the competitor's web page.Further, other important questions may include which competitor does theWeb surfer go to most of the time when defecting from the company's webpage, and which one the least, who is really the online competition, andwhat exactly does the Web surfer do on competitors' pages, where, when,and how often, and where do new Web surfers come from mostly, i.e., comefrom as in whose pages do they come from, to the company's page. Thistype of information is generally unavailable to a company. However, acompany or organization with a presence on a public social network, forexample, a Facebook page, is likely interested in analogous questionsand such information can be gleaned from the public social network.Here, the company may be interested in the visitors of its Facebook pageand the visitors' activities on the Facebook pages of the company'scompetition or of companies with complementary products and services.

There is thus a need for a system and method to provide more detailedinformation about the sequence of actions and activities of socialnetwork users when visiting a social networking site, in order toimprove customer retention, prevent customer defection, and ultimatelyprovide improved customer satisfaction. Public social networks typicallyprovide access to activities on the social network through anapplication programming interface (API), and thus allow third partiesinsights into some of the social network activities of its social mediausers. The data retrieved from such an API can serve as the basis foranswering the above questions that a company is interested in.

SUMMARY

Embodiments in accordance with the present invention provide an eventselection system for computing user migration pattern on pages of asocial network. The event selection system includes a monitor module tomonitor predetermined activities of a social media user on preconfiguredresources. The event selection system further includes a profile moduleto build social media user profiles for each user based on the monitoredactivities of the social media user. The event selection system furtherincludes a computing module to compute user migration patterns based onthe social media user profiles. The event selection system furtherincludes a display module to display the user migration patterns. Theevent selection system further includes a reporting module configured toproduce report based on the monitored social media user activities. Theevent selection system further includes a query module to receive aquery from a user and provide results corresponding to the query.

Embodiments in accordance with the present invention further provide acomputer-implemented method for computing user migration pattern onpages of a social network. The computer-implemented method includesmonitoring predetermined activities of a social media user onpreconfigured resources, building a social media user profile based onthe monitored activities of the social media user, analyzing andcomputing social media user migration patterns based on the social mediauser profiles, and reporting monitored activities of the social mediauser to a system user.

Embodiments in accordance with the present invention further provide acomputer readable medium storing computer readable instructions whenexecuted by a processor performs a method. The method includesmonitoring predetermined activities of a social media user onpreconfigured resources, building a social media user profile based onthe monitored activities of the social media user, analyzing andcomputing social media user migration patterns based on the social mediauser profiles, and reporting monitored activities of the social mediauser to a system user.

The present invention can provide a number of advantages depending onits particular configuration. First, the present invention monitorssocial media users' behavior across different social media channels suchas a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel etc. For example,a company may want to measure itself against a competitor in some way,or monitor whether social media users jump back and forth between thecompany pages and the competitor's pages. The present invention enablesthe company or enterprise to monitor a set of pages of a social mediachannel to determine social media user's activities that varies from onesocial media page (e.g., company Facebook page) to another social mediapage (e.g., competitors' Facebook page) of the social media channel.

In addition, the present invention provides ability to generatedifferent views of user migration patterns for different users such asan enterprise, consumers, and members/non-members of the social mediachannels. For example, an enterprise determines how often the socialmedia users migrate from the company pages to competitors' pages or fromthe competitors' pages to the company pages and then take correctivemeasures based on the user migration patterns. Further, the migrationpatterns may provide an opportunity to the company to increase sales,marketing, or to represent business on the social media channelsaccording to the user migration patterns. Furthermore, this mayfacilitate analysis of the user migration patterns and tuning ofmarketing strategies by the companies.

Further, the present invention maintains an activity list, each activitylist being a representation of activities and interactions of a socialmedia user on any of the monitored pages in a Page mix during aconfigured time interval. Further, the present invention analyzes theactivity list and patterns of a social media user's migration across themonitored pages used by the new, social contact centers for the purposeof sales, marketing, or representing a business on the social networksites.

These and other advantages will be apparent from the disclosure of thepresent invention(s) contained herein.

The preceding is a simplified summary of the present invention toprovide an understanding of some aspects of the present invention. Thissummary is neither an extensive nor exhaustive overview of the presentinvention and its various embodiments. It is intended neither toidentify key or critical elements of the present invention nor todelineate the scope of the present invention but to present selectedconcepts of the present invention in a simplified form as anintroduction to the more detailed description presented below. As willbe appreciated, other embodiments of the present invention are possibleutilizing, alone or in combination, one or more of the features setforth above or described in detail below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and still further features and advantages of the presentinvention will become apparent upon consideration of the followingdetailed description of embodiments thereof, especially when taken inconjunction with the accompanying drawings, and wherein:

FIG. 1 illustrates an example system embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary architecture in which variousembodiments may be implemented;

FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart depicting an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary social media user's profile page on asocial network website; and

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary social media user's comments on abusiness post on a social network website.

The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and arenot meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or theclaims. As used throughout this application, the word may is used in apermissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather thanthe mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words“include”, “including”, and “includes” mean including but not limitedto. To facilitate understanding, like reference numerals have been used,where possible, to designate like elements common to the figures.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention will be illustrated below in conjunction with anexemplary communication system. Although well suited for use with, e.g.,a system using a server(s) and/or databases(s), the present invention isnot limited to any particular type of communication system switch orconfiguration of system elements. Those skilled in the art willrecognize the disclosed techniques may be used in any communicationapplication in which it is desirable to provide improved contactprocessing.

The phrases “at least one”, “one or more”, and “and/or” are open-endedexpressions that are both conjunctive and disjunctive in operation. Forexample, each of the expressions “at least one of A, B and C”, “at leastone of A, B, or C”, “one or more of A, B, and C”, “one or more of A, B,or C” and “A, B, and/or C” means A alone, B alone, C alone, A and Btogether, A and C together, B and C together, or A, B and C together.

The term “a” or “an” entity refers to one or more of that entity. Assuch, the terms “a” (or “an”), “one or more” and “at least one” can beused interchangeably herein. It is also to be noted that the terms“comprising”, “including”, and “having” can be used interchangeably.

The term “automatic” and variations thereof, as used herein, refers toany process or operation done without material human input when theprocess or operation is performed. However, a process or operation canbe automatic, even though performance of the process or operation usesmaterial or immaterial human input, if the input is received beforeperformance of the process or operation. Human input is deemed to bematerial if such input influences how the process or operation will beperformed. Human input that consents to the performance of the processor operation is not deemed to be “material”.

The term “computer-readable medium” as used herein refers to anytangible storage and/or transmission medium that participate inproviding instructions to a processor for execution. Such a medium maytake many forms, including but not limited to, non-volatile media,volatile media, and transmission media. Non-volatile media includes, forexample, NVRAM, or magnetic or optical disks. Volatile media includesdynamic memory, such as main memory. Common forms of computer-readablemedia include, for example, a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk,magnetic tape, or any other magnetic medium, magneto-optical medium, aCD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any otherphysical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, aFLASH-EPROM, a solid state medium like a memory card, any other memorychip or cartridge, a carrier wave as described hereinafter, or any othermedium from which a computer can read.

A digital file attachment to e-mail or other self-contained informationarchive or set of archives is considered a distribution mediumequivalent to a tangible storage medium. When the computer-readablemedia is configured as a database, it is to be understood that thedatabase may be any type of database, such as relational, hierarchical,object-oriented, and/or the like. Accordingly, the present invention isconsidered to include a tangible storage medium or distribution mediumand prior art-recognized equivalents and successor media, in which thesoftware implementations of the present invention are stored.

The terms “determine”, “calculate” and “compute,” and variationsthereof, as used herein, are used interchangeably and include any typeof methodology, process, mathematical operation or technique.

The term “module” as used herein refers to any known or later developedhardware, software, firmware, artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, orcombination of hardware and software that is capable of performing thefunctionality associated with that element. Also, while the presentinvention is described in terms of exemplary embodiments, it should beappreciated those individual aspects of the present invention can beseparately claimed.

The term “switch” or “server” as used herein should be understood toinclude an enterprise switch, or other type of communications systemswitch or server, as well as other types of processor-basedcommunication control devices such as media servers, computers,adjuncts, etc.

With reference to FIG. 1, an exemplary system includes a general-purposecomputing device 100, including a system bus 110 and a processing unit(CPU or processor) 120 that couples various system components includingthe system memory 130 such as read only memory (ROM) 140 and randomaccess memory (RAM) 150 to the processor 120. The system may include acache 122 of high speed memory connected directly with, in closeproximity to, or integrated as part of the processor 120. The systemcopies data from the system memory 130 and/or the storage device 160 tothe cache 122 for quick access by the processor 120. In this way, thecache 122 provides a performance boost that avoids the processor 120delays while waiting for data. These and other modules may control or beconfigured to control the processor 120 to perform various actions.Other system memory 130 may be available for use as well. The systemmemory 130 may include multiple different types of memory with differentperformance characteristics. It may be appreciated that the disclosuremay operate on a computing device 100 with more than one processor 120or on a group or cluster of computing devices networked together toprovide greater processing capability. The processor 120 may include anygeneral purpose processor and a hardware module or software module 162stored in storage device 160, configured to control the processor 120 aswell as a special-purpose processor where software instructions areincorporated into the actual processor design. The processor 120 mayessentially be a completely self-contained computing system, containingmultiple cores or processors, a bus, memory controller, cache, etc. Amulti-core processor may be symmetric or asymmetric.

The system bus 110 may be any of several types of bus structuresincluding a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and alocal bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. A basicinput/output (BIOS) stored in read only memory (ROM) 140 or the like,may provide the basic routine that helps to transfer information betweenelements within the computing device 100, such as during start-up. Thecomputing device 100 further includes storage device 160 such as a harddisk drive, a magnetic disk drive, an optical disk drive, tape drive orthe like. The storage device 160 may include software module 162 forcontrolling the processor 120. Other hardware or software modules arecontemplated. The storage device 160 is connected to the system bus 110by a drive interface. The drives and the associated computer readablestorage media provide non-volatile storage of computer readableinstructions, data structures, program modules and other data for thecomputing device 100. In one embodiment of the present invention, ahardware module that performs a particular function includes thesoftware component stored in a computer-readable medium in connectionwith the necessary hardware components, such as the processor 120, bus110, output device 170, and so forth, to carry out the function. Thebasic components are known to those of skill in the art and appropriatevariations are contemplated depending on the type of device, such aswhether the computing device 100 is a small, handheld computing device,i.e., a smart phone, a desktop computer, or a computer server.

Although the exemplary embodiment described herein employs the hard disk160, it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that othertypes of computer readable media which may store data that areaccessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memorycards, digital versatile disks, cartridges, read only memory (ROM) 140,random access memories (RAMs) 150, a cable or wireless signal containinga bit stream and the like, may also be used in the exemplary operatingenvironment. Non-transitory computer-readable storage media expresslyexclude media such as energy, carrier signals, electromagnetic waves,and signals per se.

To enable user interaction with the computing device 100, an inputdevice 180 represents any number of input mechanisms, such as amicrophone for speech, a touch-sensitive screen for gesture or graphicalinput, keyboard, mouse, motion input, speech and so forth. An outputdevice 170 may also be one or more of a number of output mechanismsknown to those of skill in the art. In some instances, multimodalsystems enable a user to provide multiple types of input to communicatewith the computing device 100. Communication interface 190 generallygoverns and manages the user input and system output. There is norestriction on operating on any particular hardware arrangement andtherefore the basic features here may easily be substituted for improvedhardware or firmware arrangements as they are developed.

For clarity of explanation, the illustrative system embodiment ispresented as including individual functional blocks including functionalblocks labeled as a “processor” or processor 120. The functions theseblocks represent may be provided through the use of either shared ordedicated hardware, including, but not limited to, hardware capable ofexecuting software and hardware, such as a processor 120, that ispurpose-built to operate as an equivalent to software executing on ageneral purpose processor. For example the functions of one or moreprocessors presented in FIG. 1 may be provided by a single sharedprocessor or multiple processors. Further, use of the term “processor”should not be construed to refer exclusively to hardware capable ofexecuting software. Illustrative embodiments may include microprocessorand/or digital signal processor (DSP) hardware, read-only memory (ROM)140 for storing software performing the operations discussed below, andrandom access memory (RAM) 150 for storing results. Very large scaleintegration (VLSI) hardware embodiments, as well as custom VLSIcircuitry in combination with a general purpose DSP circuit, may also beprovided.

The logical operations of the various embodiments are implemented as:(1) a sequence of computer implemented steps, operations, or proceduresrunning on a programmable circuit within a general use computer, (2) asequence of computer implemented steps, operations, or proceduresrunning on a specific-use programmable circuit; and/or (3)interconnected machine modules or program engines within theprogrammable circuits. The computing device 100 shown in FIG. 1 maypractice all or part of the recited methods, may be a part of therecited systems, and/or may operate according to instructions in therecited non-transitory computer-readable storage media. Such logicaloperations may be implemented as modules configured to control theprocessor 120 to perform particular functions according to theprogramming of the module. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates the softwaremodule 162 in the storage device 160 configured to control the processor120. These modules may be stored on the storage device 160 and loadedinto random access memory (RAM) 150 or system memory 130 at runtime ormay be stored as would be known in the art in other computer-readablememory locations.

Having disclosed some components of a computing system, the disclosurenow turns to FIG. 2, which illustrates a network environment 200 inwhich the various embodiments of the present invention may beimplemented. As shown in FIG. 2, the network environment 200 includessocial media user terminal 202 associated with social media user, directsocial media channel 204 (with respect to the data mining client 208),indirect social media channels 206 (with respect to the data miningclient 208), a data mining client 208, and a system user terminal 210.The elements 202-208 may be connected via at least one network 212.

The network environment 200 includes a social media user terminal 202connected to a data mining client 208 via network 212. According to anembodiment of the present invention, the social media user terminal 202may include a computing device 100 of the social media user, forexample, a smart phone, a laptop, a desktop, a tablet etc. The network212 may include, but is not restricted to, a communication network suchas the Internet, PSTN, Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network(WAN), Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), and so forth. In an embodimentof the present invention, the network 212 may be a data network such asthe Internet.

In the various embodiments of the present invention, the data miningclient 208 may be configured to support a variety of communicationmodes. For example, the data mining client 208 may be configured tosupport a client-server communication mode with one or more of directsocial media channels 204. That is, data mining client 208 may initiatea request for information by way of a standardized message such as, amessage in accordance with an API interface understood by direct socialmedia channel 204 for example, Facebook. Direct social media channel 204will act as a server and deliver the requested information to the datamining client 208. However, the various embodiments are not limited inthis regard and any other type of communication mode may also be used.

The social media user terminal 202 may be configured to support thecommunication modes described above using a wide variety of devices,including devices operating over analog or digital communicationchannels designed for the delivery of information to users in an audioform, a visual form (including static and dynamic visual elements), orany combination thereof. For example, in some embodiments of the presentinvention, social media user terminal 202 may include a general purposecomputer device connected to the data network 212, as described abovewith respect to FIG. 1. Such devices may include a desktop computer,portable computer, personal digital assistant, smart phone, or any othertype of appliance or device having access to one or more data networkssupporting real-time and/or time-shifted communication modes over suchnetworks. However, the various embodiments are not limited in thisregard. For example, the social media user terminal 202 may be devicessupporting communications over telephony networks or any other type ofcommunication networks. Such devices may include land-line telephonedevices, mobile or cellular telephone devices, videophone devices, andthe like. However, the various embodiments are not limited in thisregard and any other types of devices may be used for social media userterminal 202.

Further, in another embodiment of the present invention, the socialmedia user terminal 202 may communicate in various ways. In oneembodiment of the present invention, a social media user makes use of asocial media user terminal 202 to establish a communication session witha social media channel 204 and/or 206. For example, a customer mayestablish a telephony communication link with a website hosting a socialmedia channel 204. In another embodiment of the present invention, thecustomer may establish a communication session over a videophone,instant messaging, or other real-time communications means.

As shown in FIG. 2, social media channel 204 and 206 are accessiblethrough the network 212 and may include direct and indirect social mediachannels, respectively, with respect to the data mining client 208. Asused herein, a direct social media channel refers to a social mediachannel that provides an API middleware interface that is accessible bythe data mining client 208. For example, social media channel 204 mayinclude Facebook. Indirect social media channels 206 may include mediachannels that do not provide an API middleware interface that isaccessible by the data mining client 208.

Further, according to an embodiment of the present invention, the datamining client 208 includes an event selection system 214, a rulesdatabase 216, and a reporting module 218. The event selection system 214includes a monitoring module 220, a profile module 222, a computingmodule 224, a query module 226, and a display module 228.

The monitoring module 220 is configured to enable system users toidentify pages that they want to have tracked by the event selectionsystem 214. For example, a company having a page on Facebook mayidentify its own Facebook page, plus the Facebook pages of certaincompetitors. In an embodiment of the present invention, the monitoringmodule 220 may allow system users to identify certain Facebook pages andthen track social media users that visit those Facebook pages. Thetracking may include observing how the social media users interact witheach identified Facebook page, how they cross over from page-to-page,and so forth.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the monitoring module 220 isconfigured to monitor predetermined activities of social media users onpreconfigured resources. The preconfigured resources include a set ofpages on a social networking site. In an embodiment of the presentinvention, the monitoring module 220 is configured to continuouslymonitor for predetermined activities that the social media user conductswhile visiting a social networking site, in particular one or morepredetermined business or personal Facebook pages, which may be groupedinto a configurable set of Facebook pages (“Page mix”). Predeterminedactivities may include posting of messages (i.e., posts), comments(e.g., responses to other posts), likes or dislikes, posting or viewingof photos, tags (i.e., identification of a person in a photo), andsubstantially any other publicly visible user and/or page-ownerexpressions.

The Page mix may contain a link to the social media or social mediachannels of a business's known competitors' pages, and a link toFacebook pages of other businesses (e.g., competitors, suppliers,customers, peers, etc.). An activity recorder records new activities andadds the new activities to a repository of activities that may besearched by either Page ID or activity owner ID.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the monitoring module220 may determine a dynamic Page mix under the direction of the systemuser. A dynamic Page mix may include additional pages that social mediauser who have been active on an initially determined static core Pagemix may have also been active on. For example, if a system userrepresents company ‘A’, the core Page mix may include all of A'sFacebook pages. For each social media user who has been active on thesepages, the event selection system would determine and track which otherpage(s) the social media user interacted with and add those pages to thePage mix.

Further, the monitoring module 220 may monitor social media users'behavior across different pages of the social networking site (e.g.,Facebook), with pages to monitor being identified in advance to monitortemporal closeness of social media users' actions. The temporalcloseness of social media users' actions may indicate that actions thattake place close in time are more significant for the system user thanif they take place farther apart in time. For example, public Facebookpages identified for monitoring are linked in some sense, for example,pages for Company ‘X’ that has competition ‘Y’ and ‘Z’, or a set ofdifferent Facebook pages each tailored to a different demographic,different geography, or the like. Further, suppose an owner of the pageswants to track how a social media user behaves across these publicFacebook pages such as a company may want to measure itself against acompetitor in some way, or monitor how often social media user jumpsback and forth between the company pages and the competitor's pages.

Further, the monitoring module 220 is configured to monitor temporalaspects of the social media users' viewing across the monitored pages.In an embodiment of the present invention, temporal aspects of thesocial media users' may be monitored by way of a relative time stamp.The relative time stamp indicates the elapsed time between observableevents on monitored social media channels. The observable events mayinclude posting a comment, replying to a comment, tagging, liking,disliking, etc.

Furthermore, the monitoring module 220 is configured to mine socialmedia user related data from the preconfigured resources of the socialmedia channel. In an embodiment, the monitoring module 220 may utilizesocial media observable events. In an embodiment of the presentinvention, a primary source for collecting the social media data may bevia application programming interface (API) functions available fromsocial media channel 204 such as in Facebook.

In another embodiment of the present invention, a secondary source ofsocial media related data is utilized, i.e., indirect social mediachannels 206. In particular, the data mining client 208 is configured toaccess and monitor indirect social media channels 206 for social mediauser related data. As a result, the social media user related data socollected may add additional aspects of the social media user'sinterest. Thus, the composite social media related data may moreaccurately reflect the overall characteristics of the social media userand allows the data mining client 208 to provide a more customized viewof the social media user's interaction with social media.

Further, in another embodiment of the present invention, the monitoringmodule 220 is configured to retrieve social media user observableevents. According to an embodiment of the present invention, themonitoring module 220 relies on API functions publicly available fromthe direct social media channels 204 (e.g., Facebook). The monitoringmodule 220 is also configured to retrieve information from indirectsocial media channels 206. According to another embodiment of thepresent invention, the monitoring module 220 is further configured toretrieve information from social media presence of competing,complementary, and partner businesses.

The monitoring module 220 may be configured to operate with othermodules, internal or external to the data mining client 208, forcollecting data regarding the social media users. For example, themonitoring module 220 may be configured to operate with a third partyaggregator system (not shown in the figure) connected to the network212.

Furthermore, the event selection system 214 in the data mining client208 may be used to at least partially analyze the collected social mediauser's data. For example, the event selection system 214 may include adata analysis engine (not shown in the figure) to identify irrelevantsocial media user data, to rank the information according to a relevanceto a particular criterion, or to classify information according tosubject, topic, product, and/or any other classification scheme. Theevent selection system 214 may also be configured to store criteria forselecting and analyzing social media events in rules database 216.

The profile module 222 is configured to build a social media userprofile for each user based upon monitored activities of the socialmedia users. The profile may be based upon social media usage by thesocial media user. The profile module 222 may be configured to buildsocial media user profiles that may include self-description, socialcircles, posts, likes, locations. According to an embodiment of thepresent invention, the social media data may be retrieved by themonitoring module 220 periodically at configurable intervals.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the profile module 222may be configured to update the social media user profiles of each userbased on the mined social media user related data. Further, the profilemodule 222 is configured to prepare an activity repository based on themined social media user related data. In an embodiment, the profilemodule 222 is configured to incorporate the retrieved social mediacontent into an extended attribute sets. The attribute sets of thesocial media user may include social interests, education and workhistories, hobbies, hometowns, favorite sport teams and TV shows,cultural background, and so on. The social media user's posting historymay reveal a lot about the social media user's interests related to thebusiness. The social media user interest set is updated that may includethe results obtained by the monitoring module 220. The profile of thesocial media user maintained by the data mining client 208 may beupdated automatically at configurable intervals after social media userdata from the mining process is available.

The attribute set refers to the set of social media user data that maybe used to compute user migration pattern across monitored pages. Thesocial media user data may include biographical social media user data,demographic social media user data, and external or internal behavioralsocial media user data, to name a few. The behavioral social media userdata may include the social media user's history with respect to thesocial media channel. However, the social media user data is not limitedin this regard and may include any other type of social media user dataused to compute user migration pattern across the monitored pages.

The computing module 224 is further configured to maintain a list ofentries, wherein each entry represents an abstract representation of anactivity or interaction of a social media user on a monitored page atthe configured time interval. Further, the computing module 224 isconfigured to analyze the activity repository. In an embodiment of thepresent invention, the computing module 224 is configured to analyze theactivity repository of social media users.

For example, consider a company ‘A’ and a set of businesses that competeto varying degrees with the company ‘A’ and with each other. This set isanalogous to a map of countries with country ‘A’ in the center,surrounded by other countries representing the competing businesses,which in turn may have other adjacent countries. A system user may wantto discover a migration pattern of an overall population of all thecountries. In particular, the system user may want to know who and howmany people migrate away from country ‘A’, how often and for how long,which directly neighboring countries and indirectly adjacent countriesthey preferably migrate to, what they do in these countries and for howlong, who returns to ‘A’ and when, which neighboring countries havestrong affinities, i.e., reciprocal migration streams (roughly equallystrong in both directions), which pairs of countries have very lopsidedmigration streams (strong in one direction but weak in the other), etc.

Furthermore, the computing module 224 is configured to compute usermigration patterns based on the social media user profiles. Themigration patterns may be used by the new, social contact center for thepurpose of sales, marketing, or representing a business on the socialnetwork sites. In another embodiment of the present invention, thecomputing module 224 is configured to compute following artifacts:

First, a ‘user migration matrix’ of size N×N, where N is a number ofpages in the Page mix. Each entry m_(ij) represents the number oftransitions from page i to page j in the mix. A transition occurs when asocial media user shows first activity on page i and then on page j.

Second, for each page ‘i’, the computing module 224 is configured tocompute an outflow metric as

$\sum\limits_{j \neq i}{m_{ij}.}$The computed outflow metric from page i indicates social media users'migration away from page i.

Third, for each page ‘i’, the computing module 224 is configured tocompute an inflow metric as

$\sum\limits_{j \neq i}{m_{ji}.}$The inflow for page i indicates social media users' migration towardspage i.

Fourth, for each page ‘i’, the computing module 224 is configured tocompute a stay metric may be represented as m_(ii), thus indicating theretention of social media users on page i and repeat of social mediauser activity on page i.

Fifth, for each page ‘i’, the computing module 224 is further configuredto compute the differential ratio (outflow-inflow)/stay, which indicatesstrength of social media users migration away from or towards page i,relative to the activities of loyal social media users (loyal as in notmigrating away or towards page i).

Sixth, for each page ‘i’, the computing module 224 is configured tocompute a page adherence metric, which measures an average continuousnumber of activities per social media user on this page (withouttransitioning away from the page to others in the mix). The pageadherence may be used as an indicator of loyalty of social media usersto a given page. The page adherence metric may further include temporalconsiderations that are not necessarily used to compute the stay metric.

Furthermore, the computing module 224 is configured to compute temporalmigration metrics that indicate, for example, how bursty or howcontinuous that the migration patterns are. Bursty migration patternsmay be correlated with events, such as events inside a company, in thebusiness sector, or the wider world, in order to explain sudden changesin migration patterns. Ultimately, a business conducting this type ofanalysis may gain valuable insights into the behavior of social mediausers with respect to its own social media presence and the social mediapresence of its competition. Such insights may prompt the business tochange its marketing practices, business processes, and product andservice offerings.

Each entry in the activity list includes a sequence a₁, . . . , a_(n) ofrepresentations of all activities of a given social media user on thepages in the mix and of interactions that this social media user haswith the page owner (the business) and other social media users on thepage. Each a_(i) may be represented in vector or tuple form as [i, type,time, content], and may contain the following field information:

“i” is the index of the page on which this activity occurred;

“type” includes an activity type, e.g., a social media user post, asocial media user comment, a social media user tag, a social media userlike, a business response, a social media user response, a businesslike, a social media user like, and so forth;

“time” includes the time when the activity occurred; and

“content” includes the textual content of the activity, if there existsassociated textual content—e.g., the text of a post or comment.

Further, in yet another embodiment of the present invention, the eventselection system 214 in the data mining client 208 includes a querymodule 226. The query module 226 is configured to receive a query from asystem user and provide desired information corresponding to the queryto the system user. The query module 226 may utilize the social mediauser profiles to retrieve information corresponding to the query. Forexample, the system user may utilize the query module 226 to determinemigration patterns of all female, Spanish-speaking customers.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the query module 226 isconfigured to provide a query interface that allows advanced customizedqueries supported by the aforementioned artifacts, including:

(a) For a given i and j, show m_(ij);

(b) For given i, display the outflow, inflow, stay, differential ratio,or page adherence metrics; and

(c) Custom queries such as:

(1) Compute an average number of social media user activities on page ifor all social media users who received a business response to a postwithin twenty minutes, and who eventually migrated to a different pageafterwards;

(2) Compute the total number of social media users who returned to pagei from pages j, k, and l within two days of defecting to these pages;and

(3) Compute an average number of social media user activities on allpages j≠i for those social media users to defected from page i after nothaving received a business or social media user response on page i.

Further, the computing module 224 is configured to compute temporalproximity between events. In an embodiment of the present invention,temporal proximity between events may indicate greater or lesserperceived importance, relevance, relatedness, correlation, or the like,to a social media user. For example, if two pages are viewed in a quicksuccession, it may be surmised or inferred that the first page wasquickly determined by the social media user to be not relevant. However,as the social media user lingers more on the first page before viewingthe second page, it may be surmised or inferred that the social mediauser was studying the first page and therefore, it may be more relevantfor the social media user. Up to a point, relevancy may be qualitativelyjudged by how long a social media user stays on the first page. However,after a predetermined time, the relevancy may become less correlatedwith the social media users' time spent on the page. For example, asocial media user spending a very long time on a page before viewinganother page may have left the terminal unattended, may have turnedtheir attention to other applications running on the terminal, may havefound the information they sought and had no other task to perform, andso forth.

Further, the computing module 224 is configured to analyze temporalinformation of the social media user. In an embodiment of the presentinvention, the temporal information may include time taken by a socialmedia user to linger on a page, or how frequently the social media userlater interacts with the page (e.g., every few minutes or once a month).The analysis may be further extended to determine metrics as requestedby analyst system user, such as, whether and how the social media userinteracts with the page owner. For example, if a social media userposted something on a company's Facebook page, and the company did notrespond to the social media user within a reasonable amount of time, itmay be valuable to know how the lack of a response may have affected thesocial media users' later web activities regarding the company and thecompany's competitors. Furthermore, the computing module 224 isconfigured to facilitate analysis in order to characterize the groupsand their members. In an embodiment of the present invention, thecomputing module 224 is configured to facilitate analysis in order tocharacterize the groups and their members based on communication flow,for example:

(1) Coherence between members;

(2) Identification of posters who are catalysts for activity (e.g.,posters whose activities result in rapid interactions among other socialmedia users, posters whose activities result in a large number ofdifferent commentators, posters whose activities result in aninteraction to stop (e.g., by solving a problem), etc.); and

(3) Rankings of the posts in various dimensions such as topics relatedto migration and loyalty, interestingness, expressiveness, etc.

Coherence may refer to a similarity between two or more social mediausers in their track able interactions between a set of social mediachannels (e.g., Facebook, etc.). Embodiments in accordance with thepresent invention may provide ability to weight the social network ofwhich people who engage in the most interaction, etc., which may in turnfacilitate an ability to group the groups. Such ability may be useful topredict the behavior of one social media user from the activity of asimilar social media user.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the computing module 224is configured to generate different views of migration patterns fordifferent users. The users may include an enterprise, consumers, andmembers/non-members of the social media channels. Such ability may beuseful for an enterprise to determine how often the social media usersmigrate from the company pages to the competitors' pages and to takecorrective actions, for example, the company may provide new stickycontents to the social media users to return to their social mediapages, or to hold the attention of the social media users and get themto spend longer period of time on their social media pages. Further, themigration patterns may provide an opportunity to the enterprise to takeactions to increase sales, marketing, or to represent business on thesocial media channels.

The display module 228 is configured to display the analysis on thesystem user terminal 210. In an embodiment of the present invention, thedisplay module 228 is configured to display the user migration patternsfrom the computation analysis on the system user terminal 210 for thesystem user. The computation analysis may be displayed in the form ofinteractive graphs, cover graphs, and/or real time graphs. Further, thedisplay module 228 is configured to display visualization of the socialmedia user activities. In an embodiment of the present invention, thesocial media user activities may be visualized as a three dimensionalvisualization, multimedia visualization, or an audio visualization.

The reporting module 218 is configured to produce a report that isaccessible to a system user via system user terminal 210. In anembodiment of the present invention, the report may provide resultsbased on the query of the system user. In another embodiment of thepresent invention, the reporting module 218 is configured to generate analert when certain social media user activities exceed a threshold orlarge user migration patterns are observed. The companies/enterprisesmay register for subscription service for receiving such alerts so thatthey are aware that there is a mass exodus from one company to anothercompany. Further, the report may include identification of actionableevents to be sent to subscribing companies.

FIG. 3 illustrates a method 300 for detecting and analyzing usermigration patterns on social networking sites.

At step 302, predetermined activities of social media user are monitoredon social networking sites. In an embodiment of the present invention,an event selection system 214 continuously monitors predeterminedactivities that a social media user conducts while visiting a socialnetworking site, in particular one or more predetermined business pageof a company or personal Facebook pages. In another embodiment of thepresent invention, the predetermined activities may include posting ofmessages (i.e., posts), comments (e.g., responses to other posts), likesor dislikes, posting or viewing of photos, tags (i.e., identification ofa person in a photo), and substantially any other publicly visible userand/or page-owner expressions.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the event selectionsystem 214 monitors social media users' behavior across different pagesof the social networking site (e.g., Facebook pages), with pages tomonitor being identified in advance to monitor temporal closeness.Further, the event selection system 214 records all the monitoredactivities of the social media user and adds them to a repository ofactivities that may be searched by either a page ID or activity ownerID.

Further, the social media user related data is mined from the socialmedia channels. In an embodiment of the present invention, the eventselection system 214 mine social media user related data from the socialmedia channels, or social media for user posts. In another embodiment ofthe present invention, the social media user data includes posts,comments, likes or dislikes, photos, and tags.

At step 304, social media user profile is built based on monitoredactivities of the social media user and mined user related data. In anembodiment of the present invention, the event selection system 214 maybuild a social media user profile based on the user related dataavailable on Facebook pages. The social media user profile may be basedon social media user related data about the user, and may include socialmedia user's self description i.e., name, gender, age etc. In anotherembodiment of the present invention, the social media user's profile mayincorporate the retrieved social media content into extended attributesets. The extended attribute sets of the social media user may includesocial interests, education and work histories, hobbies, hometowns,favorite sport teams and TV shows, cultural background, and so on. Thesocial media user's posting history may reveal a lot about the socialmedia user's interests related to the business.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the social mediauser related data is periodically retrieved, maintained and updated atconfigurable time intervals after social media user data from the miningprocess is available.

At step 306, activity repository of the social media user is analyzed.The event selection system 214 analyzes list of entries (i.e., activitylist) of the social media user. The activity list represents all theactivities and interactions of the social media user. In an embodimentof the present invention, the event selection system 214 analyzes theactivity list when a query is received from a system user of a companyto know about user migration patterns on social networking sites. Inanother embodiment of the present invention, the event selection system214 analyzes the activity list of the social media user on one of themonitored pages in a Page mix during a configured time interval.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the event selectionsystem 214 computes artifacts such as, user migration patterns. In anembodiment of the present invention, the event selection system 214computes user migration patterns of social media user across socialnetwork sites that are of concern to the new, social contact center forthe purpose of sales, marketing, or representing a business on thesocial network sites.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the event selectionsystem 214 computes temporal migration metrics. The temporal migrationmetrics may indicate, for example, how ‘bursty’ or how continuous thatthe migration patterns are. Bursty migration patterns may be correlatedwith events, such as events inside a company, in the business sector, orthe wider world, in order to explain sudden changes in migrationpatterns.

Further, in an embodiment of the present invention, the event selectionsystem 214 facilitates analysis in order to characterize the groups andtheir members. In another embodiment of the present invention, the eventselection system 214 facilitates the analysis in order to characterizethe groups and their members based on communication flow, for example,coherence between members, identification of posters, and ranking of theposts such as, topics related to migration and loyalty, interestingness,expressiveness, etc. In another embodiment of the present invention, theevent selection system 214 displays the computation analysis on thesystem user terminal for the system user as cover graphs, interactivegraphs, or real time graphs. In yet another embodiment of the presentinvention, the social media user activities are visualized by the systemuser.

At step 308, a report is produced based on the monitored activities ofthe social media user. In an embodiment of the present invention, themonitored activity may include user migration patterns based on thesocial media user profiles of users on a social networking site. Inanother embodiment of the present invention, the event selection system214 reports the identified and generated events of the social media userto the customer contact center as an actionable event to indicate thatthere is a mass exodus from the company pages to competitors' pages. Inyet another embodiment of the present invention, the produced report isaccessible to the system user via system user terminal 210. Further, inan embodiment of the present invention, an alert is generated whencertain social media users' activities exceed a threshold or large usermigration patterns are observed. Further, the alert may be provided tosubscribing companies.

FIG. 4 illustrates social media user's profile page on an exemplarysocial network site. As shown in FIG. 4, the profile page 400 of thesocial media user on the social network site may provide information toa data mining client 208 to retrieve information to facilitate detectionand analysis of user migration patterns. According to an embodiment ofthe present invention, the profile page 400 of the social media user onthe social network site may include social media users' name, gender,work and home location, language, Facebook friends, education level,work history, favorite TV shows, books, or music. However, the variousembodiments are not limited in this regard and other types of socialmedia user data may also be provided without limitation.

The profile page 400 of the social media user on the social network sitemay also include additional information elements. For example, as shownin FIG. 4, the additional information elements may include additionalcharacteristics of the social media user, such as personal facts,schooling, hobbies, and beliefs, to name a few. As a result, thisinformation may help the data mining client 208 to build activity set toanalyze user migration patterns.

FIG. 5 illustrates social media user's comment on a post on a socialnetwork site. The social media user may have commented on business posts502 and 504 on a business Facebook page on the social network site. Thedata mining client 208 may retrieve the post of the social media user506 and considered it as a social media user data to characterize socialmedia user's interest on a particular topic. The data mining client 208may use this data to build social media user profile having activity setalong with the information about the social media users' hobbies,interest, histories etc.

An event selection system embodying the present invention may be hostedon substantially any sufficiently robust computing platform (i.e., asystem server) having an Internet access. In particular, the systemserver does not need to be a web server hosting any of the monitoredpages. However, the system server should have access to, and be able toinvoke and/or interpret, application programming interface (API)middleware that may be made available to external developers by socialnetworking sites such as Facebook. The system server of embodiments inaccordance with the present invention performs an ongoing data miningfunctions using the API middleware. The API middleware offers aninterface by which a system user can track activities of social mediausers on each monitored page. For example, a Facebook API may provideinformation on real-time observable activities such as who posts what ona vendor's Facebook page, who comments on the vendor's Facebook page,who tagged it, who likes (or dislikes) that page, and so on. Certainsimple activities by a social media user, such as simply viewing asocial media channel, do not currently provide an observable event thatis reported by the API middleware.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the event selection systemmay provide an ability to track a social media user who jumps back andforth between different social networking platforms, each of which mayhave their own customized API middleware interface. The tracking may beaccomplished by way of an ID, which may be system assigned or derivedfrom a characteristic such as an IP address. The set of observableactivities would vary from one social networking platform to another andmay include activities like following, becoming a fan, posting a tweet,interacting on a business social media channel, and so forth.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the event selectionsystem may be incorporated with and/or tied to a web server of anorganization deploying the embodiment. For example, suppose a company‘A’ desires to monitor the behavior of social media users to theirFacebook page as well as to the Facebook pages of their competitors ‘B’and ‘C’, as described above. Embodiments may be co-located or co-hostedon the web server of company ‘A’. Observation of track able activityrelated to competitors ‘B’ and ‘C’ would still occur by use of the APImiddleware. However, co-location in this way allows for tighterintegration with company ‘A’, and possibly being able to analyticallydata mine additional information related to company ‘A’ that is notavailable through API middleware, such as the social media users'interaction with a public web site of company ‘A’ (not limited to just aFacebook page).

The exemplary systems and methods of this present invention have beendescribed in relation to a user device (e.g. smart device). However, toavoid unnecessarily obscuring the present invention, the precedingdescription omits a number of known structures and devices. Thisomission is not to be construed as a limitation of the scope of thepresent invention. Specific details are set forth to provide anunderstanding of the present invention. It should however be appreciatedthat the present invention may be practiced in a variety of ways beyondthe specific detail set forth herein.

Furthermore, while the exemplary embodiments of the present inventionillustrated herein show the various components of the system collocated,certain components of the system can be located remotely, at distantportions of a distributed network, such as a LAN and/or the Internet, orwithin a dedicated system. Thus, it should be appreciated, that thecomponents of the system can be combined in to one or more devices, suchas a switch, server, and/or adjunct, or collocated on a particular nodeof a distributed network, such as an analog and/or digitaltelecommunications network, a packet-switch network, or acircuit-switched network.

It will be appreciated from the preceding description, and for reasonsof computational efficiency, that the components of the system can bearranged at any location within a distributed network of componentswithout affecting the operation of the system. For example, the variouscomponents can be located in a switch such as a PBX and media server,gateway, in one or more communications devices, at one or more users'premises, or some combination thereof. Similarly, one or more functionalportions of the system could be distributed between a telecommunicationsdevice(s) and an associated computing device.

Furthermore, it should be appreciated the various links connecting theelements can be wired or wireless links, or any combination thereof, orany other known or later developed element(s) that is capable ofsupplying and/or communicating data to and from the connected elements.These wired or wireless links can also be secure links and may becapable of communicating encrypted information. Transmission media usedas links, for example, can be any suitable carrier for electricalsignals, including coaxial cables, copper wire and fiber optics, and maytake the form of acoustic or light waves, such as those generated duringradio-wave and infra-red data communications.

Also, while the flowcharts have been discussed and illustrated inrelation to a particular sequence of events, it should be appreciatedthat changes, additions, and omissions to this sequence can occurwithout materially affecting the operation of the present invention.

A number of variations and modifications of the present invention can beused. It would be possible to provide for some features of the presentinvention without providing others.

For example in one alternative embodiment of the present invention, thesystems and methods of this present invention can be implemented inconjunction with a special purpose computer, a programmed microprocessoror microcontroller and peripheral integrated circuit element(s), an ASICor other integrated circuit, a digital signal processor, a hard-wiredelectronic or logic circuit such as discrete element circuit, aprogrammable logic device or gate array such as PLD, PLA, FPGA, PAL,special purpose computer, any comparable means, or the like.

In general, any device(s) or means capable of implementing themethodology illustrated herein can be used to implement the variousaspects of this present invention. Exemplary hardware that can be usedfor the present invention includes computers, handheld devices,telephones (e.g., cellular, Internet enabled, digital, analog, hybrids,and others), and other hardware known in the art. Some of these devicesinclude processors (e.g., a single or multiple microprocessors), memory,non-volatile storage, input devices, and output devices. Furthermore,alternative software implementations including, but not limited to,distributed processing or component/object distributed processing,parallel processing, or virtual machine processing can also beconstructed to implement the methods described herein.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the disclosedmethods may be readily implemented in conjunction with software usingobject or object-oriented software development environments that provideportable source code that can be used on a variety of computer orworkstation platforms. Alternatively, the disclosed system may beimplemented partially or fully in hardware using standard logic circuitsor VLSI design. Whether software or hardware is used to implement thesystems in accordance with this present invention is dependent on thespeed and/or efficiency requirements of the system, the particularfunction, and the particular software or hardware systems ormicroprocessor or microcomputer systems being utilized.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the disclosedmethods may be partially implemented in software that can be stored on astorage medium, executed on programmed general-purpose computer with thecooperation of a controller and memory, a special purpose computer, amicroprocessor, or the like. In these instances, the systems and methodsof this present invention can be implemented as program embedded onpersonal computer such as an applet, JAVA® or CGI script, as a resourceresiding on a server or computer workstation, as a routine embedded in adedicated measurement system, system component, or the like. The systemcan also be implemented by physically incorporating the system and/ormethod into a software and/or hardware system.

Although the present invention describes components and functionsimplemented in the embodiments with reference to particular standardsand protocols, the present invention is not limited to such standardsand protocols. Other similar standards and protocols not mentionedherein are in existence and are considered to be included in the presentinvention. Moreover, the standards and protocols mentioned herein andother similar standards and protocols not mentioned herein areperiodically superseded by faster or more effective equivalents havingessentially the same functions. Such replacement standards and protocolshaving the same functions are considered equivalents included in thepresent invention.

The present invention, in various embodiments, configurations, andaspects, includes components, methods, processes, systems and/orapparatus substantially as depicted and described herein, includingvarious embodiments, sub-combinations, and subsets thereof. Those ofskill in the art will understand how to make and use the presentinvention after understanding the present disclosure. The presentinvention, in various embodiments, configurations, and aspects, includesproviding devices and processes in the absence of items not depictedand/or described herein or in various embodiments, configurations, oraspects hereof, including in the absence of such items as may have beenused in previous devices or processes, e.g., for improving performance,achieving ease and/or reducing cost of implementation.

The foregoing discussion of the present invention has been presented forpurposes of illustration and description. The foregoing is not intendedto limit the present invention to the form or forms disclosed herein. Inthe foregoing Detailed Description for example, various features of thepresent invention are grouped together in one or more embodiments,configurations, or aspects for the purpose of streamlining thedisclosure. The features of the embodiments, configurations, or aspectsof the present invention may be combined in alternate embodiments,configurations, or aspects other than those discussed above. This methodof disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention thatthe present invention requires more features than are expressly recitedin each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventiveaspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosedembodiment, configuration, or aspect. Thus, the following claims arehereby incorporated into this Detailed Description, with each claimstanding on its own as a separate preferred embodiment of the presentinvention.

Moreover, though the description of the present invention has includeddescription of one or more embodiments, configurations, or aspects andcertain variations and modifications, other variations, combinations,and modifications are within the scope of the present invention, e.g.,as may be within the skill and knowledge of those in the art, afterunderstanding the present disclosure. It is intended to obtain rightswhich include alternative embodiments, configurations, or aspects to theextent permitted, including alternate, interchangeable and/or equivalentstructures, functions, ranges or steps to those claimed, whether or notsuch alternate, interchangeable and/or equivalent structures, functions,ranges or steps are disclosed herein, and without intending to publiclydedicate any patentable subject matter.

What is claimed is:
 1. An event selection system for computing usermigration patterns across social network pages, the event selectionsystem comprising: a memory device, the memory device storing executableinstructions; a processor in communication with the memory device,wherein the processor when executing the executable instructions:monitors predetermined activities of a plurality of social media userswhile visiting a predetermined set of webpages comprising a plurality ofwebpages within a social networking site; builds a social media userprofile for each user based on the monitored activities of the socialmedia users; based on the social media user profiles, computes usermigration patterns across two or more webpages of the predetermined setof webpages; and drives a display of the user migration patterns on asystem user terminal.
 2. The event selection system of claim 1, whereinthe processor when executing the executable instructions: records thepredetermined activities of the social media users in a repository. 3.The event selection system of claim 1, wherein the predeterminedactivities comprise one or more of posts, comments, likes or dislikes,posting or viewing of photos, tags, publicly visible user expressions,or page-owner expressions.
 4. The event selection system of claim 1,wherein the predetermined set of webpages comprises webpages of businesscompetitors on the social networking site.
 5. The event selection systemof claim 1, wherein the processor when executing the executableinstructions: utilizes social media observable events; and mines socialmedia user related data from the predetermined set of webpages withinthe social networking site.
 6. The event selection system of claim 5,wherein the processor when executing the executable instructions:updates the social media user profile of each user based on the minedsocial media user related data.
 7. The event selection system of claim5, wherein the processor when executing the executable instructions:prepares an activity repository based on the mined social media userrelated data.
 8. The event selection system of claim 7, whereinprocessor when executing the executable instructions: analyzes theactivity repository of the plurality of social media users whilevisiting the predetermined set of webpages within the social networkingsite.
 9. The event selection system of claim 8, wherein processor whenexecuting the executable instructions: computes temporal migrationmetrics indicating a continuity of the user migration patterns.
 10. Theevent selection system of claim 5, wherein the processor when executingthe executable instructions: prepares an extended attributes set basedon the mined social media user related data.
 11. The event selectionsystem of claim 10, wherein the extended attributes set comprises one ormore of the social media users' interests, education and work histories,hobbies, locations, hometowns, favorite sport teams and TV shows, orcultural background.
 12. The event selection system of claim 1, whereinthe processor when executing the executable instructions: maintains alist of entries, wherein each entry represents an abstractrepresentation of an activity or interaction of a particular socialmedia user on a monitored webpage during a configured time interval,wherein the monitored webpage comprises one of the predetermined set ofwebpages within a social networking site.
 13. The event selection systemof claim 1, wherein the processor when executing the executableinstructions: receives a query from a system user.
 14. The eventselection system of claim 13, wherein the processor when executing theexecutable instructions: utilizes the social media user profiles toretrieve information corresponding to the query received from the systemuser.
 15. The event selection system of claim 13, wherein the processorwhen executing the executable instructions: produces a report thatindicates desired information based on the query received from thesystem user.
 16. A computer-implemented method for computing usermigration pattern on pages of a social network, the computer-implementedmethod comprising: monitoring, by a processor, predetermined activitiesof a plurality of social media users while visiting a predetermined setof webpages comprising a plurality of webpages within a socialnetworking site; building, by the processor, a social media user profilefor each user based on the monitored activities of the social mediausers; based on the social media user profiles, analyzing and computing,by the processor, migration patterns of social media users across two ormore webpages of the predetermined set of webpages; and reporting, bythe processor, monitored activities of the plurality of social mediausers to a system user.
 17. A computer-implemented method of claim 16,wherein the predetermined activities comprise one or more of posts,comments, likes or dislikes, posting or viewing of photos, tags,publicly visible user expressions, or page-owner expressions.
 18. Acomputer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising receiving,by the processor, a query and utilizing the social media user profilesto retrieve information corresponding to the query.
 19. A computerprogram product for computing user migration patterns across socialnetwork pages, the computer program product comprising: a non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium having computer readable code embodiedtherewith, the computer readable program code comprising: computerreadable program code configured to monitor predetermined activities ofa plurality of social media users while visiting a predetermined set ofwebpages comprising a plurality of webpages within a social networkingsite; computer readable program code configured to build a social mediauser profile based on the monitored activities of the social mediausers; computer readable program code configured to analyze and compute,based on the social media user profiles, migration patterns of socialmedia users across two or more webpages of the predetermined set ofwebpages; and computer readable program code configured to reportmonitored activities of the plurality of social media user to a systemuser.